Game Review: I, Zombie (Switch)

The continued mass addiction to the paranormal world of zombies seems to be an endless topic to use in media. With popularity in both visual and gaming media, it starts to spark the question who the real zombies are.

I was lucky enough to be offered a free download code for the game I, Zombie on the Nintendo Switch, to both expand my Switch gaming library, but also for an opportunity to test out a unique game from independent developer, Awesome Games.

The game is very simplistic, it’s the Zombiepocalypse and you are the “alpha zombie”. Your sole purpose is to eat as many brains as possible and convert all remaining humankind into zombiekind.

When you infect a human, they turn into another brainless minion who you gain full control over. With this you can grow your horde bite by bite, which depending on how you look at it, either makes you more powerful or just creates a bigger shield of sacrifices in the path to allow you to take down your next human target.

Using simple button commands (A, Y, B) , you can control your zombie horde to either stop, follow you or attack without you. This is part of the main strategy as you need the horde at times to go after larger groups of humans or for even logical sneak attacks.

There is a flaw in the button commands, which comes in the form of the X button. This button if pressed restarts the level from scratch. Now if you are a normal wild button masher, or you are playing the game in the dark like many of us do, its not uncommon to accidentally hit the X button and lose all your progress made in the level.

Each level is unique as it is randomly designed to contain houses and crates for you (and the humans) to hide behind, but also random in what type of human (solider or civilian) and how many exist within the level. A civilian will not run when they see a zombie coming, but a solider will detect the zombie within a certain perimeter and begin to shoot at the target. At this point it’s either run away fast, send in your horde or try to eat him before he kills you.

The game progression between each level is simply based on your success to infect all the humans in the level. Perhaps I was just lucky enough to have a good strategy, but once you get a few levels in, it doesn’t take much skill to finish a level.

The game only contains 20 short levels, so there is not much play-ability content available. The extra desire to play more of I, Zombie comes with the “level creator tool”. This allows for a player to make their own crazy levels that can be made to challenge yourself, but also the Nintendo Community as user made levels can be uploaded and then downloaded by others to play and explore. It is this little addition that allows for a bit more of play life of the game.

Overall, I,Zombie for the Nintendo Switch is a decent game — but much too short to be one of those top games on the market. The old school bit graphics are refreshing and simplistic to someone who grew up with the older gaming consoles, but the general enthusiasm to continue to play the game after few levels dies fast with the repetitive tasks and similar environment layouts. While I recommend this game as a couch sleeper for anyone just looking for a basic game to play quickly between downloads, it is sadly one that will get lost within the marketplace of other indie games available.